- Hey guys!
Welcome to another Tip and Trick Tuesday.
Today I'm gonna show you how you can actually get
iMessage on Android.
Thanks to a crafty young developer
we now actually have a viable way
to use iMessage on Android.
There is, as of course there is
one big caveat and that's that you need to have
iMessage and Mac running at all times for this to work.
Essentially, what happened was he figured out
that while it would be against Apple's rules
and he'd have to do some fanagling
to actually just like get into Apple's servers
and send out iMessages because
all of iMessage is on Apple's servers.
Instead, he figured out that if he had a computer
that was running iMessage
everything comes to that computer
he could then kind of use that as a proxy,
have things send from the computer to your phone,
from your phone back to the computer and to Apple's servers
back and forth and you get how that works, right?
So this was his way kind of around it
and it seems to be working, Apple hasn't stopped it.
It's not against any of their policies
so as long as you have an Android phone
and you have a Mac that you don't mind leaving running
with your iMessage running on it
this actually does work.
Okay so first up we need Java to be running on your Mac
now a lot of you probably have it installed
because another program needed it
but just in case and if not, click the link
beneath this video to be taken to my site
and then click this link here to be taken to Java site
where you're going to download the Java JDK for macOS.
So you see that right here, we're gonna click that guy.
Need to accept it first, then click that guy.
And save that to your desktop.
Then once that's done downloading
you can click on it to open it.
And double click the icon to install it
then go through the steps to install it.
Next we need to allow Terminal to go to make changes
to the computer, Terminal is the command line program
that comes with your Mac, so it's nothing crazy.
We're just gonna give it a little more permission
than it normally has.
So to do that, you're gonna add to system preferences.
Security and privacy.
Privacy.
Then we go to Accessibility
and we're gonna click this little lock
down here at the bottom to make changes
put in our password.
Then we can click the plus button
and we're gonna add Terminal
which will be under Applications
all the way down here at the bottom, Utilities
Terminal and open.
And then we can close that.
Then we need to download the WeServer app
from their site by clicking this link here
that's linked beneath this video on my site
and we're gonna click download
and download for macOS this will be the server
versus the actual app that we get on our phone.
Then we're just gonna save that to our desktop.
Then we're going to double click
the .zip file for the server
and it'll give us a new folder.
Inside the folder, we're gonna double click run.command
now if you get this message that says
it's from an unidentified developer and won't open it
that's fine, click okay.
Then to get around that, we're gonna go to
System Preferences, Security and Privacy
General
and you'll see under here, allow apps downloaded from
App Store or other things.
It'll say run.command was blocked
we're gonna say open anyway and then click Open.
You can close this and this
and we're now in the beginnings of the program.
So first thing we need to do is we need to
put in our email that we use iMessage with
so this is our iCloud email
that is connected to our iMessage account
and it has to be the right email so put that in
then you're gonna hit Enter
then you're gonna put in the password.
Now the password can be anything you want
we just need it 'cause we're gonna put it into
the WeMessage app on our Android phone
so that it can connect to this WeMessage server.
It does not have to be the password you use for iCloud
it can be whatever you want.
Then hit Enter after that.
Once we do that it'll tell us that it's been started,
everything is working properly
and then we're gonna focus on the app on our phone.
Then we're gonna go to the Play Store on our phone
and we're gonna type in WeMessage and download that.
Once it's installed, we can click open
and it's gonna ask us for three things.
An IP address which I'll talk about in a second,
the email which is the one that we just set up
that was our iCloud iMessage email
and the password that we just set up as well.
So you can put in the email and the password for now
the IP address, that we need to talk about.
The IP address that it's talking about
there are two different types.
There's a private one and a public one.
The private one is actually what your network
is giving the IP internally to your computer
so you can use that and you can find that
by going to System Preferences, Network
clicking on Advanced
TCPIP and you'll see this IPV4 address
now you can use that and if you do
this will only work if you're on your WiFi network at home
so the computer and the phone are both
on the same WiFi network then you can
use iMessage on the phone
but if you leave the house which people tend to do
this will no longer work so what we have to do
is find our public IP address
and create what's called Port Forwarding
or an open Port in order for us to then
tunnel in through the outside internet
into our private home internet
and into the computer.
It's not as complicated as it sounds
but it is different depending on what router you have
and what manufacturer of that router, et cetera.
So I'm gonna show you how I do it with my Fios router
but you're just gonna have to kind of Google around
or YouTube and figure out where these different settings are
within your particular router
but it should be something similar.
The first step to this is we need to find our routers IP
the fastest way to do that is to go into System Preferences
then go to Network, Advanced, TCPIP
and you'll see Router there so if you highlight that
copy it and paste it into your browser
it will bring up your routers configuration page
now on this page, for mine it says the username is admin
and then my password is actually written on my router
for you, you might want to Google default
name of your router password.
A lot of times people don't change it when they install it
so then you could use that to log in
otherwise you could reset your router
and make it back to the default
and then use that to log in.
Otherwise you just have to Google
how do I find my password for my router?
Once you do though, you can then just log in
okay then once we're in here
we're gonna go to Firewall
it might be called Security or something similar.
Yes I do want to proceed.
Then we're gonna click on Port Forwarding
or something like that.
Here, we're going to select the IP
well we're gonna select our computer from here
so we'll scroll down and select my Macbook Pro.
David's MBP.
And the application we want to forward
is going to be Custom Ports
and it's going to be five two's.
Then we click add.
Now that is saved there, we can click apply.
After that, we need to find our public IP
and to do that we're gonna go into Google
and just type in, what is my IP?
It'll actually show you your public IP address
right there on the screen.
It'll be a series of numbers and dots.
I've blurred mine out here
but it'll be written right there for you.
You're gonna then take that
and we're gonna put it into the app
where it says IP on our phone.
Then tap sign in.
Once you log in, you'll be greeted by the UI.
So I'm gonna tap Settings
and we're going to do Sync Contacts just to make it
easier for you to type to people
instead of having to remember all their numbers
or their email addresses, start the process.
Make sure Terminal has access, hit okay.
On your computer, you'll get a message that says
Terminal would like to access your contacts?
You're going to hit okay.
Then once it syncs your contacts
you can hit the plus button at the bottom
to start a new conversation.
Then obviously go into people's conversations here
and you'll get all of your normal fun stuff
that you get with iMessage.
There you go!
It goes without saying that your computer
needs to stay plugged in and on
and Messages and Terminal need to stay open at all times.
And it needs to be connected to the internet at all times
in order for this to continue working.
Now if for some reason it does get disconnected
the program will actually keep a queue
and then once the device reconnects
it'll pull all the iMessages back in apparently
according to the developer.
So that's kind of cool.
He's also, as I said, creating a bunch of new features
and actively working on this so that's nice as well.
If you liked this though, let me know in the comments below
what you thought of this tutorial
of me doing more tutorials like this.
If there's any tutorials you'd like to see me do et cetera
would love to hear from you guys.
If you did like this though, please thumbs up it
or share it, it is greatly appreciated.
Also don't forget to check out the rest of my channel
if you like what you see there, please subscribe.
As always though, regardless, thanks for watching.
(upbeat music)